"UNDER MY UMBERELLA!"
"becoz when the sun shines we'll shine together!
told u i'll be here forever ,
said i'll always be your friend ,
took an oath i'ma sitck it out till the end!
now thats raining more than ever;
know that we still have each other ,
you can stand under my umbrella ,
you can stand ;
Under my umbrella ,
ella ella eh eh eh ,
under my umbrella,
eh ...eh ...eh ,..a ...ehe eh ! ";
Man i love this song ! Its been two years since i first heard it , exactly 731 days have passed (leap year included! ) and over that period ,i've heard it over a zillion times over but ,even then whenever i hear this song i always fall in love with it over and over again !!
They say the more and more u listen to any song the more likely your gonna get extremely bored with it ! This concept i have personally experimented with and found to be extremely true ,but the law of constant repetition does not hold good with this song AT ALL!! Either the song is exceptionally good or its got something else merged with it that makes it all the more special!! In my case both hold true !
I remember exactly 731 days ago, monsoon June 2007 , I'm 17 going on 18 , a month has passed since my birthday , i walk down the road , humming away in my pathetic musical voice.For some reason rihanna just doesn't quit playing inside of me and i don't mind it one bit !! My horribly bad vocals being drowned by the gentle sound of soft rain drops splattering away ,against the plastic blue sheet of my umbrella.
The song couldn't have been more perfect except for the basic fact that i had no one to keep under my umbrella !! Huh...... i think 17 yrs have passed and not a single relationship ,I don't know if i shall be "the dancing queen " this year ,i have no reason to dance and looking at my extremely tight muscles which need a whole personal daily session of physiotherapy to bring back to normal, my future on the dance floor doesn't seem that bright!! Year 16 was anything but sweet , aaah .....well lets not walk back down memory lane again ! The world out there ,is fresh and new ,and well lets explore that !
And i couldn't have chosen a more perfect day for it !! Its monsoon season , and i love monsoons ! And theres nothing better than an "Indian Monsoon"!! The clouds cover up the sky in perfect puffs of shady gray !! The sun is hidden , its existence temporarily forgotten. The wind has pleasantly cooled as, opposed to its hot headed summer nature . The showers the previous day ,aiding the cooling process dictated by the winds . The air smells clean ,new as if suddenly bright after a nice long bath! At corners moss,shrubs ,creepers and flowers dare to show their existence ,and what a lovely site it is . The mood is subdued ,lazy , clear, sleepy , pleasant , it feels as if nature is giving us one of her shy ,sleepy seductive smiles ,and no one is complaining cause everyone to too busy falling in love with it ! And so was I!
Its on such days that i dare to take my umbrella out , which otherwise is left to rot under a blanket of even brown dust below the hallway cupboard. Such days were meant to be spent out , to go for long walks , under the sky without any destination in mind . Like the English , i dared to venture out umbrella in hand being my only shield ,but as i do not live in the country side a walk to the local park and back should suffice for "thy lovely walk along the country side on a rainy day " , where introspection can be given its yearly justification .
It was perfect that day , never have i appreciated my neighborhood more , although year round i curse it for its increasing traffic along the roads ,which includes the occasional fast car hits slow car /innocent by-standard accidents ,where u can see the perpetrators getting away at top speed and an audience always present to watch the drama and give their 2 bit.The local college hall playing third rate bollywood songs (remixs included !).And God forbid those dastardly singing competitions along with the monologues .Seriously i wonder how jobless are these people to have gatherings year round !I even gave up trying to correlate them to any national holiday or significance .
Along with the "pagal bhikari " thats the name me and my brother gave to the beggar who admirably has survived for the past 3 yrs and running strong ,by just screaming his head off in sessions lasting from a few minutes to hours on the various curse words in his dictionary ,which mind you are not pretty ! But the strategy works , we Indians hate being cursed even if it is from a random mad man for we believe it will come true , so out of fear he is fed ,clothed and even given an occasional drink by my many rich bungalow neighbors ,their servants and the local run down shack-tea house by the canal! By the way he lives by the banks on the canal and surfaces on top every day and then disappears !
Maybe he's batman for all we know !Cause once i tried looking down from the bordered pavement to see where this guy could even think of taking homage besides such stinking and unhealthy waters , but i couldn't see anything worth inhabiting and then well, i had to run becoz when i looked up again he was just a foot away from me !Although he has never been documented to have hurt anyone (although he claims to do so in his shouting sessions) , i did not want to be the first for him to prove his claims !! Guess we'll never know the truth about Batman or the "pagal bhikari"!
Hm..........Coming back to the original story ,well there i was walking , that day just went on becoming more and more perfect ,by the minute. There was absolutely no traffic save for a few cyclists,2 wheelers and an occasional car , just swiftly moving along ,breaking the wind and the silence swiftly for a change. It started to drizzle lightly.Even the pagal bhikari was nowhere to be seen ,(maybe residing in his secret lair ),that itself was cause to celebrate.Where he actually was , we’ll never know the truth.
At 7 .30 on a Sunday morning ,for a morning walker nothing could have been better .Especially in my neighborhood .I passed many a morning walker (reference to Wordsworth!)
some with partners ,
some old some young,
some in pairs ,
some with a son (had to rhyme it with something!)
some with their dogs !!
As the rain made beats against the waterproof plastic , i began humming my current favorite song : umberella !
i was now in a quite lane , where no one but me was present , straight ahead the circular red outline of the park was visible , my destination ! I always feel its the journey not the destination that matters , and if my short journey was extremely blissful so far i had no idea it would become much more adventurous and better! ;P.
It began to rain lightly,I was walking , humming and rolling my umbrella !
singing ,
"becoz when the sun shines we'll shine together!
told u i'll be here forever ,
said i'll always be your friend ,
took an oath i'ma sitck it out till the end,
now thats raining more than ever;know that we still have each other ,
you can stand under my umbrella ,
you can stand under my ..........................................................................
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooooooveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ,............
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmooooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
,MOVE ,MOVE ,MOVE,.............HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatoooooooooooooooooooooooo,
HATO! ”,
I turned suddenly ,mortified by the screams , and the sight i saw was strange and alarming.Apparently 3 dogs,a bulldog , a German Shepard and i don't know how it got there ,but a dachshund ,were barking and ferociously chasing an entity moving on wheels it seemed ,From what i could decipher through the moving rain drops . It took me well over a minute to realize that the "move ,hato " wordings uttered where meant for non other that yours truly!For the procession was about to collide straight into me , the entity on wheels being the first !!
By the time I did realize this it was too late.I was about to crash and burn and nothing was going to stop it !! When i had given up all hope and was about to make the sign of the cross and let god take matters in his holy hands !
The entity screamed "JUMP!!" ,
At that point i pretty much had no other option than jumping (now when i come to think of it , i guessed i looked like a moving cartoon,plastic umbrella and all! ) , and before i knew it i was rolling it seemed in air.The wind talking to me . As i was preparing for a crash , my eyes were closed , to check whether i was still on earth or heaven i opened my eyes , and found myself staring into the blue shielded eyes of the helmet clad entity .
"just a sec " was ,his reply of acknowledgement.
"okay , i said" ,!seriously did i have an option ! )
i then realized that i was actually being supported ,rather carried in his arms ,and he was on skates . The dogs were gaining speed behind us and he too sprang forward with all his might . My umbrella was now shielding us from the rain which had also gained speed . We seemed to be going round the park ! (what a site we would have been!)
He rolled forward with all the speed he could muster , we reached the park wall ,the dogs still behind us .
"JUmp" ,he said for the second time ,after gently landing my feet on solid ground!
Of all the walls i could think of jumping over in my life , the park wall was definitely on the bottom 10 !
I obeyed none the less ,rational thinking had lost its meaning !
I landed on the other side after being catapulted across the 1.5 mt long wall with the help of his hands which acted like a push up . He followed me ,but mid way stopped ,seemed the dachshund had taken the short cut ,while we were going round ,as its short legs didn't allow it the leverage to run around the whole park .IT was pulling on his jeans on the other side .Now it was my turn to act like a HERO and i pulled him from the other side playing tug of war with the dog , across the wall (as i said before, there was no time for rational thought ! ) , i succeed and fell on the grass and he landed on top of me , 30 cms of air separating us ; his helmet flew along with the attache goggles showing me he had a human face ,and the umbrella landed on top of us .
Both of us were "under the umbrella " with it raining more than ever !
Embarrassed we got up , and sat below a tree,under the umbrella on a park bench.Introductions we made. He wasn't from outer space ,but just the new neighborhood kid .Who wanted to earn a few extra decent bucks by offering to take the neighbor's dogs for morning walks along with taking a joy ride .But because he had never done it before ,he ended up skating over all the dog's tails ,causing them to run behind him menacingly!
The park was actually closed that day ,for a reason i never cared to find out so the dogs barked their heads of with indignation seeing their pray survive and ultimately got wet and tired and ran back home !
But for me well , i kinda had "my first date " , which was "Amazing " in every sense !! That year i was a "dancing queen" !I had all the reason to dance with joy for i found the reason to do so in the boy besides me on that bench !
HE is still besides me , we have gone through a lot of highs and lows !But the journeys we have had were worth it for today we are on a conman destination which will merge our destinies forever !
And from that time , today and forever ,
I permanently have someone "under my umbrella"!!
!Not your typical ,ideal 1st date I must say!! ;p)
